Nicola Sturgeon has been falling over herself to reach out to the business community.

Before she had even become SNP leader, let alone First Minister, aides briefed the press she would extend the Scottish Government's 'small business bonus' rates relief scheme.

In her keynote conference speech last month, she stressed the importance of a vibrant economy and wealth creation. The same message was to the fore when she unveiled her Programme for Government and yesterday she gave an in-depth interview to the Financial Times (telling the paper she was not engaged in "some kind of class warfare") and devoted her first major speech outside Holyrood to the subject of business and the economy.

The focus is partly to counterbalance claims she is catapulting Scottish Government policy to the left. There is actually little evidence of that so far, though the prominent rhetoric of social justice and tackling inequality appears to have terrified the Conservatives.

Tory MSP Murdo Fraser said Ms Sturgeon was pursuing a "socialist agenda which sets a course back to the 1970s" after digesting yesterday's speech.

In fact, Ms Sturgeon's message to the largely No-voting business community is more nuanced than simply saying: "We need you, we'll try to help and, don't panic, your tax breaks are safe."

What she aims to do is bring business leaders with her into a social justice big tent. She told them: "Our drive as a government to tackle inequality in our society is also a key part of our support for business. We believe - in common with many economists across the world - that equality and cohesion are good for growth, as well as good for individuals."

She went on: "Creating greater prosperity and fairness isn't something any government can do alone - it has to be a shared national endeavour and I am asking you to be part of it."

The inspiration for this comes from Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winning economist who, Ms Sturgeon also announced yesterday, is set to extend his role on the Council of Economic Advisers, the panel of experts created by Alex Salmond to help guide policy.

Professor Stiglitz put forward the view that rising inequality was damaging capitalism in his 2012 book, The Price of Inequality. He argued the growing concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a tiny elite was "intolerable".

Bad business decisions continued to be rewarded, he argued, while a failure to invest in education or decent housing hit productivity. Writing in the aftermath of the banking crash, he was also scathing about "deficit fetishism," or the kind of determined austerity pursued by George Osborne.

The book deals mainly with the US but the principles apply generally as others, such as the French economist Thomas Piketty, have argued more recently.

Ms Sturgeon, a voracious reader, has studied Stiglitz's book carefully, aides say. Intriguingly, given the increasingly bitter war of words between the SNP and Labour, the same ideas also underpin Ed Miliband's mission to create "markets with morals" and a "responsible capitalism" which works for everyone.

Despite there sniping, then, there is broad agreement between the two parties on this. The question is, what will Scotland's business leaders think?